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Boston bombings trauma surgeon to speak at UHS event

David King, MD, will discuss “Lessons Learned from the Boston Marathon Bombings” at 8 a.m., on Saturday, March 18, at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel in downtown Binghamton.

The teaching day will be held from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. It is intended for first responders and other clinical professionals. Fee and registration information is available at 763-6311.

Dr. King had just finished running in the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013, when cell phone messages he was receiving led him to believe he was needed at his place of work, Massachusetts General Hospital.

On arriving in the emergency room, he recognized that patients there had been injured by improvised explosive devices. Within three minutes, he was taking a patient to an operating room.

“I ended up providing care at some level to every one of the 43 patients we had at Mass General,” he said. “Later I personally introduced then-President Obama to every single one of them.”

As a result of the bombings that day, there were 256 patients spread across six of the Boston area’s Level 1 trauma centers.

Hospitals and first responders have learned much from mass-casualty incidents such as the bombings, and are applying the knowledge to reduce deaths from severe wounds and blood loss, he said.

Dr. King is a trauma critical care surgeon and director of Trauma Research at Mass General, and also serves as an assistant professor of surgery at Harvard University.

Other speakers at the conference in Binghamton will include:

Faizan Arshad, MD, of Healthquest Systems, on the pre-hospital management of obstetrical emergencies; Robert Newmyer, MD, of Upstate Medical Center, on pediatric critical care; Mike McEvoy, PhD, of Albany Medical Center, on “All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten”; and Micah Lissy, MD, an orthopedic and sports medicine surgeon at UHS, on building a team in sports medicine emergency care.

Media coverage of the event and interviews with speakers are invited. To make arrangements for coverage, call UHS Community Relations, at 762-2336.

To register or for more information click here to visit the event page.